Disappear

By lianneharmony

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Disclaimer

I do not own any characters presently linked with Alice Academy (Gakuen Alice) at the moment. Everything else you see here is a figment of my imagination.

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Summary

A strange incident causes Mikan to realize that her real Alice isn't the Nullifying Alice, but the Alice of Alice Control: to copy, steal or erase Alices. Suddenly her formerly tranquil life at the Alice Academy has been transformed and well-kept secrets will be revealed.

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Prologue:

Discovery

---5 years ago---

It was a pleasant day at the academy for Mikan Sakura, eleven years old. Everything was sunny, happy, birds were singing –

It was so ironical that a perfect day could go so wrong.

"Mikan, want to go to Central Town?" Yuu asked Mikan, when she met him. "I need to get several things, and Hotaru needs some mechanical stuff."

Mikan smiled and greeted her best friend.

"What? No hug today?" Hotaru asked with raised eyebrows.

"What? You wanted a hug?" A wide-eyed Mikan asked. This was a first for Hotaru. "Sorry, Hotaru, I thought –" Mikan was about to say: "I thought you hated me hugging you," but instead hugged Hotaru. It was rude after all, not to hug Hotaru when she expected her to, wasn't it?

Wham!

(Invention no. 37 – the newly improved target-accurate idiotgun. Specially for idiots like you-know-who. Never misses its target, once target is keyed in.)

"Waaa! Hotaru, you wanted a hug! Why hit me with your idiot gun?" Mikan whined.

"I asked why there were no hugs today, not to give me one, idiot."

"Hotaru," Mikan was still weeping.

"For best friends, you two sure are different," Yuu observed.

Mikan sighed, surprisingly grown-up for her age now at this moment. "Well, Hotaruis my best friend –"

"Hi, Mikan, Hotaru, Yuu," Ruka approached them. Behind him, his best friend, Natsume Hyuuga, slouched over next to him, looking elsewhere.

"Ruka! Natsume!" Mikan yelled happily. "Yuu and Hotaru are all going to Central Town. Want to come?"

"Don't be silly," Natsume said. "I've got better things to do." Truthfully, he was due at a mission soon, and Persona had specifically told him to remain in school grounds, until the signal was given.

"What?" Mikan was sad. "But, without you, Mr. Jinno won't let me go!"

"Tough luck," Natsume said, still looking elsewhere.

"Grrr, you're so mean, Natsume," Mikan told him.

"Whatever. Just get away. I don't want to see your stupid face," and he sauntered off.

"Arrgh! He is so infuriating!" Mikan yelled.

Mikan was soon to find out the reason why Natsume did not agree to going to Central Town. After walking a while, Natsume suddenly collapsed to the ground.

"Natsume!" Ruka yelled.

All of them ran to the spot where Natsume lay, clenching his fists together, his face contorted into undeniable pain. This was the second time Mikan saw him like this, and she was scared to death. Hotaru, as calm as usual, used some fancy remote control to summon the floating thingy which they all used. But just as they were trying to get the invention to work, it failed and the invention seemed to disintegrate.

"Wha – What's going on? Mikan, are you using your Nullifying Alice?" Ruka exclaimed in surprise, noticing the invention's condition.

"No!" Mikan cried. "Why would I? I care for Natsume too!"

"According to my Alice detector, someone is using a Nullifying Alice. And the person is nearby." Hotaru's eyes narrowed at Mikan.

(Invention no. 38 – the Alice detector. To detect Alices and their sources up to a range of 5 miles.)

"Get him!" A familiar voice cried.

It was Reo, with some of his cohorts.

"You never give up, do you?" Ruka yelled. He tried to use all his pheromones, but –

"It's the Barrier Alice!" Yuu cried. "You'll never get past it!"

"Wait, Reo, someone's using the Nullifying Alice against me!" one of the cohorts cried, as the Barrier Alice weakened.

"It's that little brat. Don't worry, 'that person' will take care of it," Reo called over, as he managed – together with one of his other cohorts, to isolate Natsume from the others.

"Who on earth is 'that person' anyway?" Mikan yelled. "Oh my goodness, what's going on with my Alice?" Mikan's Alice began to weaken, and the Barrier Alice guy managed to increase the Barrier.

Reo laughed, an evil, unfeeling laugh. "A Nullifying Alice against another Nullifying Alice. You know her – or should know her – better than anyone else, child." He pointed to a woman, who wore a black hooded sweater, long black slacks and black sunglasses. "Okay, now, let's teleport him –"

"No!" Mikan yelled, and suddenly, a burst of fire engulfed the man with the Alice of Teleportation.

"Reo, she's – she's not got the Nullifying Alice – she's –"

"The Alice of Alice Control?" Reo looked incredulous.

"It was his!" the woman cried.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Hotaru took the idiot gun (it was the only thing closest to a weapon that she had) and struck the woman who appeared to weaken Mikan's Nullifying Alice.

"Ouch!" the woman cried. The sunglasses fell to the ground and broke, while the hood fell down, revealing long brown hair and brown eyes.

"What the –?" Yuu cried. "This is no freaking illusion –"

"She looks like –"

"Megumi! We have to run! The chaos has attracted others!" Reo cried.

Mikan stared at this woman called Megumi. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Suddenly, she felt an intense pain in her abdomen, and fell down to the ground, curled up in a ball.

"Megumi!" Reo called. The woman named Megumi turned around.

"Wait!" Mikan tried to cry, but the pain – it was too unbearable.

And Reo and his cohorts (including the woman called Megumi) had escaped.

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"What the –! How dare he?" Jinno yelled, and lightning bolts seem to come out of his eyes, as he and Narumi heard the tale from the four of them. They were all at the hospital now, in Natsume's ward, discussing the strange event. Mikan was in the next bed, now sleeping peacefully.

"Sir, there was another thing," Yuu began hesitatingly. "There was a fire that engulfed the teleporter. I don't know what it means, but I doubt it could have been from Natsume, and Reo said something along the lines of the Alice of Alice Control and they were talking about Mikan–"

"The thing I don't get is how they managed to infiltrate the academy so easily. There must be a spy somewhere in the academy –" Narumi tried to evade the question, but Hotaru interrupted and told him to tell them more about the Alice of Alice Control.

"I sorry children, but this is classified information. Please leave," Jinno interrupted, and shooed them out of the room.

"But –" Ruka began. Hotaru pressed the palm of her hand to the wall, with an expressionless face.

Jinno paid no heed and closed the door after them.

"What is the academy going to do about this, Narumi?" Jinno asked.

"You do know that the incident before could very well repeat itself, don't you? Only this time, the magnitude of it might very well be worse."

"The AAO is getting stronger. I can't believe they managed to infiltrate without using disguises or anything –"

"The real problem is that trouble-maker Sakura. We've not had a day of peace since she's entered the academy. And now, to find out she has an even more powerful Alice, an even more dangerous and deadly one – I'll ask Persona to take her under his wing."

"What?" Narumi cried in shock. "But – that would break her heart! She loves her Special Ability class! For her –"

"You were always a weak judge of character, Narumi. This girl is too much like 'that person' to be given lax. Who knows what she could do if she was free to do whatever she wanted within the academy?"

"'That person' was her mother! Of course she'll be like her! They're related! And the only reason why that incident happened years ago was precisely because the students weren't free to do what they wanted. I should know; I was one of them!" Narumi yelled, waking Mikan up, but Natsume still seemed still, as if he was sleeping.

"Mr. Narumi! Mr. Jinno!" Mikan cried happily, but then her face contorted with pain. "Oh, my – what's – why's there so much pain?"

"That's it. I'm calling Persona," Mr. Jinno announced.

"Wha – Why? Mr. Narumi?" Mikan's eyes, already teary because of the pain, was filled with shock and confusion.

"Mikan, I think you should know something. We believe your Alice isn't Nullification as we previously thought."

"But – my Alice – I can nullify Alices, objects –"

"Yes, that's very true. But Mikan, the reason why you thought your Nullification Alice was your Alice was because when you were young, you had been exposed to a source of Nullification Alice. See, your real Alice is the Alice of Alice Control."

"Wha – What's that?" Mikan's eyes, afraid at the seriousness in Narumi's face, showed fright and confusion.

"It's the Alice which allows you to use other people's Alices and manipulate theirs. It's very rare; only one other person was reported to have it."

"Who's that person?"

"He's dead now. But he was a teacher at this academy, one of the Dangerous Abilities."

"What? Does that mean –?"

Persona entered at that moment with Mr. Jinno. "So this is my new student? Well, I'm not surprised. The life force I sense from this girl is far from normal. And she's already used her Alice before?"

"We believe the first time she used it was when she was a baby. Mr. Noda confirmed it, when he had traveled into the past. He met 'that person' carrying her to a relative's house, so she must have been very young, so young she has no recollection of it. Today was the second time she used it; she gained her partner's Alice," Jinno remarked.

"Natsume's?" Persona's eyebrows were raised. "That must have hurt. But Natsume's Alice itself is a very dangerous one." Persona shook his head. "I told him to stay here for the mission. I suppose he was still worn out from the last one."

"I still think that the AAO had tampered with something, perhaps sent a spy –" Jinno remarked, but was interrupted by Narumi.

"We believe every time she uses her Alice, it causes intense pain –"

"So hers is the fourth type, eh? Poor little kitty."

"Fourth type?" Mikan asked, looking at Narumi.

"My recommendations are to send her away for a while, to study her Alice further. Then, when we have enough knowledge, we can use her as a tool against the AAO. I'll see the executives to confirm that this will be our course of action?"

"Tool? Course of action? Send me away? What is he saying, Mr. Narumi?"

But Narumi remained silent.

Persona smiled at her confusion. He bent low so that he and Mikan were both at eye-level and patted Mikan's head with his gloved hands. "Listen, child," he said. "From now on, you must realize that you are no longer just a student at the academy. You're gifted with a very powerful and rare Alice, and that cannot be put to waste."

Mikan looked down. "No, I suppose not."

"Besides, look on the bright side," Persona added. "Since we have your Alice now, we don't require Natsume's to go on missions."

"Natsume – won't go on missions – anymore?" Mikan's usually cheerful face was in serious thought.

"Well then, I'll do it," Mikan agreed.

Unbeknownst to them, eyes that burned like ruby frowned underneath the next bed in the ward and three other students looked shocked at overhearing the conversation on a laptop.

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Author's Note:

Hooray! My first GA fanfic! This plot bunny never left my head for a minute. I think Ruka must have made sure there was a good supply of carrots in my head, because I never forgot about this plot for a minute, even though I'm busy updating my other fics (or at least, I should be).

Anyway, I hope my lovely readers will care to drop a review, okay? Natsume will take care of any flames, and if that doesn't work, Mikan can nullify them – well, sort of. Lol. Maybe I'll get Hotaru to invent a special kind of invention to filter out all flames. Lol.

This chapter was such a breeze. Hope you guys love it. I know I do.

The one and only,

lianneharmony